Author Archives: lawofmarkets

Miller’s low life

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From Arthur Miller was a communist at Instapundit.

ARTHUR MILLER’S DAUGHTER HUMANIZES PLAYWRIGHT IN NEW DOCUMENTARY: Some controversial behavior connected to the Communist Party gets played down.

Much worse is her fractured retelling of the events surrounding Miller’s confrontation with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and its investigation of Hollywood’s Communist Party in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Director Elia Kazan, Miller’s best friend and stage collaborator, was an embittered ex-Communist who agreed to testify and name names of other party members. (“I hate the Communists and have for many years, and don’t feel right about giving up my career to defend them,” Kazan said.) Miller didn’t speak to him for 10 years, and also wrote a play, The Crucible, comparing HUAC and its witnesses as murderous witchhunters.

Eventually, Miller, too, got a subpoena. He denied ever being a Communist, even when HUAC confronted him with his written application for party membership. The manifest absurdity of his denial would be reinforced decades later when historians discovered Miller had been a secret writer for the Stalinist party cultural organ New Masses.

Nothing in Writer hints at Miller’s underground life, his false testimony to HUAC, or his secret allegiance to the most murderous dictator of the 20th century. Even making allowances for a daughter’s desire to put her father in the best possible light, that’s a little much.

As Mark Steyn wrote of screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo in 2003, when the off-Broadway play that was a likely inspiration for the 2015 biopic starring Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston as one of Miller’s Communist contemporaries, “Though the play won’t tell you the answer to that famous question – ‘Are you now or have you ever…?’ – the answer is: yes, he was. The more interesting question is: How do you feel about getting one of the great moral questions of the century wrong?”

Witchcraft in the form of science

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Jo Nova on The “ten second” guide to the world of skeptics. She says it is only for newbies but said so well and so contrary to modern forms of madness, thought I would list those essential ten seconds’ worth, but there is much more at the link.

The oddest peculiarity of all is that for someone who is an AGW sceptic, it appears as if almost the entire world has gone mad.

“They still don’t understand Trump”

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Newt Gingrich: Trump (and his success) continues to baffle our country’s elites. What’s going on?

It’s been nearly 14 months since President Trump took office, but the media and Washington establishment still don’t understand our nation’s 45th president. They continue to criticize, distort, discredit and ignore his actions and accomplishments – while making little to no effort to actually understand what he’s doing and the way he operates.

This has been the elites’ pattern since Donald Trump first announced his bid for the White House. It’s what prompted me last year to write my No. 1 New York Times bestselling book “Understanding Trump,” which was released in paperback this week.

When President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Agreement, the elites could not see how breaking with these bad agreements could possibly be good for Americans. After all, some of the Washington elites had helped draft these deals – which in the minds of the liberal media meant these deals must be good.

Tammy Bruce and Ethan Berman debate the president's decisionVideo

Media overblowing decision to leave Paris Climate Accord?

When President Trump imposed direct trade measures on some foreign products – including solar panels, steel, and aluminum – to protect U.S. industries that were being undercut, the elites reflexively questioned his political-trade-foreign relations acumen. Seemingly none of them stopped to consider that President Trump’s decades of success in international business may provide him with an informed opinion and worldview counter to their own. 

As we have seen President Trump make changes to his Cabinet and personal staff, the elites in Washington and the national media have insisted that these decisions are a sign of dangerous instability in the White House. Never mind that the best business leaders and managers routinely make tough staffing decisions to improve their organizations’ long-run initiatives or mission.

It seems the elites simply refuse to think about the Trump presidency through any lens other than that of traditional Washington – despite the fact that President Trump has never been a part of (and represents a departure from) the traditional establishment. This confused, square peg-round hole analytical approach is made worse by the fact that the elites then try to use Washington jargon to define and attack the president.

In the minds of the elite, President Trump doesn’t fit the post-World War II international mold that regards the United States as the world’s only real superpower that can afford to prop up all its allies – and even some of its enemies. For that, the elites claim President Trump is an isolationist.

The president doesn’t fit the traditional Republican free-trader mold because he demands that Americans must benefit from trade agreements. Therefore, according to the elites, he must be a protectionist.

President Trump didn’t enter office with a team of politicos and policy wonks who had been with him through a decades-long political career, so to the elites insist the Trump administration is inexperienced.

Finally, the president is not afraid to take decisive action when he’s made up his mind about something, so the elites claim he is unstable.

However, many Americans hear these Washington words (isolationist, protectionist, inexperienced, unstable) and see no relationship to their president or his administration.

Many Americans – who for years watched factories close and American prosperity dwindle as a result of bad multinational agreements and unfair trade deals – regard President Trump’s decision to get out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Agreement as necessary and long overdue. To them, the president has been working to break away from deals that help other countries at the expense of U.S. success – just as any good business executive would.

Similarly, millions of Americans see the president taking actions to stop foreign countries that are cheating at trade as a sign that he is defending the interests of our country abroad. That’s also what good business leaders do.

When President Trump replaces one of his team members with someone more in-tune with his vision, most Americans see him acting as a typical, goal-oriented executive.

In “Understanding Trump,” I point out that our president defeated the media and Washington elite largely because they simply refused to understand him as a candidate. Further, they were profoundly wrong about the 2016 election because they couldn’t comprehend that the American people wanted something other than the traditional Washington elites’ idea of a president.

It seems the elites didn’t read my book – or they didn’t take its lessons to heart – because they haven’t changed a bit. They still don’t understand Trump.

Spotted by OneWorldGovernment

Not only will they sell the rope used to hang them they will feel virtuous in making the sale

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I knew enough of these corporate CEO bureaucrats from my days in the Chamber of Commerce, who are in reality no different from public servants. Unlike the genuine entrepreneurs who built their enterprises from the ground up, the ones who have taken over these large enterprises are often as left wing as a university professor in the humanities. This is Rita Panahi quoting Jordan Peterson on corporate virtue signalling.

“People who are doing this at the corporate level will rapidly get their comeuppance … If you’re operating within a capitalist environment like let’s say the executives and management of Qantas, who are being paid disproportionately well, you don’t also get to be a social radical. And you don’t get to salve your conscience for receiving a pay cheque that’s 300 times the pay cheque of the average worker by pretending you’re a social revolutionary. It’s an appalling sleight of hand.

“In addition, you don’t get to invite the radical leftists into your corporate utopia without opening the door to a major fifth column. If you are naive enough to think that the demand of the radicals for the transformation of your company is going to end with a few requests for language transformation then you’re a complete bloody fool.

“It’s staggering to me to watch the corporate elite types kowtow to the radical Marxists. They do it to virtue signal or because they’re feeling guilty or maybe because they’re facing genuine pressure and don’t want to stand up against it. But they’re playing a game that will punish them intensely.”

“In the early 1970s when it became absolutely untenable for anyone with any moral intellectual pretensions to be on the side of the Communists … the same doctrine went underground and transmuted into this postmodern dogma that completely dominates the humanities and social science end of the university curriculum and increasingly plays a determinative role in the legislative process at every level of government in the West. It’s the same old wolf in new sheep’s clothing.”

Lindsay Shepherd and Mark Steyn

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On the off chance you think the generations coming through to replace us are in some sense onside with the notion of free speech and an open society, then watch this video. As they discuss, argument from the left is reduced to ad hominem forms of personal attack. Since everything is socially constructed everything must be socially deconstructed. White males believe what they believe because it is in their personal interests to believe it. Therefore, nothing white males have to say has the slightest value so far as understanding the world is concerned. Non-white, non-males have the answers and are the only ones anyone should pay attention to, all the more so since truth is relative and never absolute.

In the video, Mark Steyn talks to Lindsay Shepherd, the Teaching Assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada who became internet famous at the end of 2017, when three members of the WLU faculty attempted to destroy her life for having shown a short Jordan Peterson public television clip to her students. She had, however, recorded her interview and then released the recording to the media which stopped them in their tracks, and has, in fact, made her famous. Articulate beyond her years, a product of the modern left though she is, she is a bridge between us and the millennial generation. She describes herself as “the most left-wing member of her family”.

Here as well is the original recording of Lindsay’s inquisition by the faculty at Wilfred Laurier, worth every minute of the 43 minutes it takes to listen to it through.

And if you want to see where this is heading, you should look at this and this. More people in “the shut up business”, as Steyn describes it. However, as one commenter on the MS/LS video said:

Peterson’s command of facts, deep understanding of human nature and group behaviour, and wealth of experience with people in need is a reality the SJWs and post modernists cannot deal with. And it rings true to those who listen to him. And gives them something real to anchor too.

So there is hope, as faint as it may well be.

The Mark Steyn interview comes via Expression, Identity, and the Corruption of the Academy.

An absolutely certain test for detecting moronic ignorance

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You want to know what ignorant morons look like? They are the people who vote no to this.

He created a 3m-high illuminated sign — like a vintage advertising billboard — that asks passers-by to vote on whether capitalism has benefited them. The votes are tallied on an electronic scoreboard….

In most iterations, the results had been roughly split between those in favour and those against capitalism.

Half the people in the wealthiest communities that have ever existed have no idea what allows them to enjoy the living standards they have! To vote no on whether capitalism has benefited them, as in has capitalism been a net plus in their lives, means a level of stupidity, ignorance and ingratitude that is beyond comprehension. Beyond dumb and deranged. Ignorance almost in its purest essence. It is also why we in the West are in such danger of having the socialists in our midst turn every economy, including our own, into the next Venezuela.

Conservatives are everywhere

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Another completely dense article from Janet Albrechtsen, this time on Where have all the conservatives gone? Her first half sentence: “It is premature to read the last rites to Australian conservatism”. As if she’d know. Oddly, just the other day this same issue came up in a letter I was writing, in which I wrote in reply to someone else:

“Conservative” is not a list of policies but a state of mind that values the past and wishes to preserve what we have learned by heart so that it can be passed on to future generations. Border protection is the single most conservative policy of the present day. Lose on that, and everything else disappears. Zero tariffs is not a “conservative” policy in any sense I can think of.

So here is Janet going on about the same thing, but with hardly a sense of what that elusive thing called conservatism is. I will come to the comments in a minute, but first will take you to her last para:

Just as Ronald Reagan was once described as an optimist in a party that had acquired a habit of pessimism, Australian conservatives need a good dose of optimism before they can man up for a long battle over ideas that still matter today.

Missing entirely in her empty screed is mention of Donald Trump, the most conservative political leader of the past thirty years anywhere in the world, and a living example of what a conservative looks like and does. And then these, from the top down, in comments on her article at The Oz.

Mandy6 hours ago
For a prime ministership cut short by Turnbull, the Labor way, Abbott’s legacy is impressive :

stopping the boats, beginning budget repair (getting regulations & spending down), completing beneficial trade deals with Japan, South Korea and China, scrapping the mining and carbon taxes, agreeing to a second Sydney airport, ending wasteful corporate welfare, reducing the public service by 12,000, and abolishing hundreds of unnecessary government boards and agencies.

And, he has said he’s sorry for reneging on the pledge to repeal 18C. He’s acknowledged the wall of opposition he faced at the time – within the parliament and the lobby groups outside of it.He’s said he’s sorry for reneging, what more do you want?

Cultural leadership, no other contemporary parliamentarian can top this -Abbott’s memorable speech, self-penned, for the 2015 dawn service at Gallipoli. A snippet, “So much has changed in one hundred years but not the things that really matter. Duty, selflessness, moral courage: always these remain the mark of a decent human being. They did their duty; now, let us do ours.They gave us an example; now, let us be worthy of it. They were as good as they could be in their time; now, let us be as good as we can be in ours”.

And he’s still providing leadership to this day.From the backbench.Raising the parliamentary bar with contributions via interviews, self penned newspaper articles and speeches such as the Sydney Institute speech on immigration levels (and energy) and his “Daring to Doubt” speech for Global Warming Policy Foundation in London. And the toxic Turnbull and his Team’s reaction to Abbott speaking the truth? They attempt to shoot-the-messenger Abbott, because as Richo has noted, many resent the man they have already knifed, Tony Abbott, because he dares to demonstrate, day after day after day, that the man they chose to replace him as prime minister is a political dud.

sue14 hours ago
We had Abbott and you Janet worked against him in favour of Turnbull. If you have done some research and changed your mind, how about you say so.

Susan12 hours ago
Abbott did not walk meekly away from reforming Free Speech. You omit to tell what we all now know and that it was voted down multiple times in the Liberal Partyroom by your mate Malcolm and his Black hand gang. It was just another little game out of their long planned play book to undermine their PM (Abbott). You still refuse to give any credit to Abbott but it sticks in your craw Janet that Turnbull turned out to be such a vindictive dud, however had he not screwed you over in regards to the position on the Board over one article where you didn’t act as his cheer squad , I wonder if we would be hearing as much criticism of Turnbull from you as we do now?

I’m surprised you too are not making excuses and blaming Abbott, BJ and everyone and everything else for Turnbull’s bad polling. Fact is the man has no Political Judgement, has well and truly alienated what was once the Liberal (Now Turnbull Party) base and seems comfortable and happy for being responsible for driving up power prices, on steroids, now out of the reach of many struggling Families. Young kids and their parents in Australia, not a third world Country (yet), Australia in 2018 who are living without electricity thanks to Malcolm, Bishop, Frydenberg et al’s signing/ratifying the UN Paris agreement.

This is what happens when both Major Parties in Australia are left of centre and it is NOT in the best interest of Australia and its citizens.

Jon13 hours ago
Well Janet it looks like your push to depose Abbot has backfired. I’m pleased you have the grace to cover Turnbull as he is now and not as you hoped he’d be.

Unfortunately Abbot has been trashed so badly it is difficult for him to make a comeback. Who will you anoint this time?

Brian6 hours ago
Cory Bernardi obviously concluded, fighting for Conservative/Christian values within the LP was a pointless exercise.Without conviction at the top, nothing can be achieved. While Turnbull remains, nothing will change. I have concluded that unless a messiah appears on the horizon, (to lead us out of the moral & political wilderness) the abyss is beckoning for Australia

Glencoe12 hours ago
As everyone knows Tony Abbott is the best fighter the Conservatives in the Liberal Party has but Turnbull is too hateful and paranoid to let him loose and people like you, Savva, Van Oneselen and media have hounded him to death each time he starts a topic or comments on poor government policy. If let loose he would be eating Shorten and the Unions but making Turnbull look weak and we cannot have that.

Michael6 hours ago
I attended Jordan Peterson’s excellent event in Sydney last night. We oldies were well and truly outnumbered by young people, particularly young men. When he made a joke about ‘safe spaces’ at universities, the kids erupted with applause. There is hope yet, Janet.

Free trade and the modern left

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From a note I wrote to a friend.
_____

I have had two articles of mine put up at Powerline Picks, one I have done on tariffs and the other on Jordan Peterson, which Peterson himself tweeted a link to. My reason for mentioning them is that by concentrating on all of this, I have had a penny drop that I discussed in a note I wrote to someone else, which might interest you since we are both forever trying to unravel the latest scams and tactics of the left. These were the articles: Economic theory is all right in theory which dealt with tariffs and my Quadrant review of Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.

Mulling the issues over, thinking of tariffs in the context of Peterson, it has very strongly come to mind that oddly, but almost with certainty, the left are now the big free traders because it is the most certain means they have at their disposal to bring our economies down and Western Civilisation along with it. They are no more pro-market than they have ever been, and in no sense are supporters of entrepreneurial capitalism, but with open borders structured to allow Chinese goods to undermine American manufacturing, especially when accompanied by mass immigration from third world hordes lacking any marketable skills, there has never been a better opportunity to bring the West down, and to do it with the connivance of large elements of the right. I don’t think PDT will have seen things as a coordinated set of actions, and perhaps it is just an uncoordinated series of policies that in sum all end up working in the same direction. Perhaps for him it was merely intuitive, in the same way it has been for me, in recognising what must be done to beat back the left without appreciating what the left is up to. But wherever his approach has arisen from, his actions are all necessary as part of a program to maintain the American economic system and its historical constitutional form of government in place even in the face of the kinds of challenges not even the Soviet Union could mount.

There is no need for a central committee of the left to work this out, but once various elements fall into place and their destructive value is recognised, their aim is to keep them where they are. The madness is that these are parody versions of the traditional policies of the right, which has led to an ocean of opposition from those who would normally be expected to support him. Will need to think these things through some more.

I have had some flack on my shared right-of-centre blog over supporting PDT on tariffs, but the flack really comes from the alliance of the Wall Street Journal and the governments of China, Mexico, Canada and Australia. I don’t know whether Trump sees these things as I now do, or he is just working things through one policy at a time, but I don’t know how this can be fought off. The single most important personal characteristic in looking at Trump may be his personal wealth since he cannot be bribed in the way the entire American Congress is at constant risk of being. If classical economic theory – which he is applying although he may not know that either – were not so accurate in creating wealth and jobs, it would truly be the end of the game for us in the West. It may be anyway, but here we are at least being given something of a respite and an opportunity to fight again another day.

Jordan Peterson in Australia

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Sounds just like JBP everywhere else. And here he is talking to Bettina Arndt.

And if you are just looking for the highlights.

And with Leigh Sales on the ABC.

And on a supposed comedy interview.

This is how this last interview is described.

Controversial Canadian psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson explains to Tom why keeping his room clean is important, why identity politics suck, and why the ABC should be less Marxist.

And the heading is absolutely right: “Jordan Peterson DESTROYS Tom Ballard.”

And this is the audio from his presentation in Melbourne.

Jordan Peterson with Mark Steyn

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From June 2017. About Free Speech. You might even wonder whether this conversation could happen today, never mind a decade from now.

Some quotes from JBP but you need to watch it all for yourself. And there is also Mark Steyn!

“I’ve studied the development of totalitarianism for a very long time and one of the things I know is the issue of ceding control over language, and the Government has carelessly made a precedent and the precedent is compelled speech essentially.”

“I think I am a classical liberal in the old school sense. I am an individualist.”

In reference on the form of sex and gender education that is happening in schools, “people have no idea it is happening. . . . The average person has no idea that it is happening.”

“We take free speech for granted, we actually take our whole civilisation for granted and we don’t understand that it rests on certain foundation blocks and if you remove those blocks all hell will break loose. And I think our civilisation is a whole lot more fragile that people understand and it is also in a lot more peril than people understand.”

“We’re also in a situation right now where your right to say anything about religious beliefs, unless they’re Christian, is seriously in danger, and that’s so dangerous that it’s almost beyond comprehension. It puts us back in Mediaeval times.”

“The patriarchy is just Western Civilisation. Patriarchy is just a code word for that. Governed by their Marxist dogma and post-Marxist dogma, they think it needs to be re-tooled from the bottom up. It makes them natural allies of any other system that opposes our system.”

“Jacques Derrida may be is the most dangerous person of the last forty years.” His writings are the basis for “an all out assault on Western categories of thought. . . . Categorisation is the basis of cognition. And so he has basically made the claim that thought itself is an agent of oppression.”

“As the politically correct movement inches forward. . . . [The Social Justice Warrior types] find a hypothetically vulnerable group – it doesn’t matter what it is – and then they use them as a protective shield while they move incrementally forward and so if you object you are targeted as if you are picking on the poor vulnerable people.”

Why I had stood out was not that I was speaking in generalities but that “I had said there was something I would not do and so had drawn a line so it was the combination of generalities with specificity that made the issue real for people.”

“Many of the kids on the left equate argument for free speech with racism.”

“Why I took these issues on now is because I believe it will be worse later.”